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The Real Housewives of New York City stars don’t brandish broken stemware like their Beverly Hills counterparts do, but they still go for the jugular.

“We cut with words,” jokes Bethenny Frankel, who reveals in the new issue of Us Weekly that she got into a number of spats on season 8. "When you get to the top, people try to tear you down. I’m a lion, and my business is my cub. You come for it, you get scratched."

Dorinda Medley's boyfriend, John Mahdessian, found out firsthand on the Wednesday, April 20 episode. The dry-cleaning business owner crashed the Housewives' lingerie party and, out of nowhere, confronted Frankel, 45, about Skinnygirl, the multimillion-dollar food and beverage company she built from the ground up.

Frankel noted that Mahdessian seemed "a little lit up," then snidely asked, "You wanna blow some lines and talk this story through?” Medley diffused the situation by escorting Mahdessian from the room.

But he's not the only one to attack Frankel's livelihood during the course of the season. "There are three different people that do three different things that come for my business," she continues to Us. "I guess great success has its drawbacks."

Frankel fights back with her Big Apple attitude. "I'm full-on in the mud pit right out of the gate," she says. "Dirty as a dog. This is the closest I've ever come to really throwing down with someone."

The Real Housewives of New York City airs on Bravo Wednesdays at 9 p.m. ET.